Saturday, May 23, 2009

Emory Ross, SJ

Remember Emory Ross SJ? Long time team chaplain at St. Joseph's. Here is an excerpt from a story about women's coach Theresa Grentz starting her college coaching career at Hawk Hill:

I began teaching school and that was when St. Joe's called and asked me to
replace a coach who was taking personal leave for a year. I had to interview
with Father Blee, who had just fired Jack McKinney, an extremely successful
coach at St. Joe's. It had caused a monumental uproar and the local papers were
calling him an ogre, so I dreaded our meeting. He hired me.Our team's moderator,
Father Ross, and I wound up coaching St. Joe's for two years. He was a wonderful
man who accompanied the team and said mass on road trips.

During one particular road trip - I couldn't have been more than 23 years old at the time - there was a knock on my hotel door and it was Father Ross. He handed me a bottle of White Label Scotch. I said, "Father, I don't drink." And he said, "My dear, if you stay in this profession, you might consider it." To this day, I still have that bottle, unopened. Those are the kind of people that mentored me.


THWND,

Joe Cabrey
Hawk Ambassador

Dr. Jack Ramsay, Class of 1949, Head Coach of Saint Joseph's Basketball team from 1955 to 1966, guided his teams to ten post-season tournaments. One of his many honors was to be inducted into the Scholar-Athlete Hall of Fame at the Institute for International Sport in June 2003. In this photo, are two players from the Class of 1964, Jim Lynam and Jim Boyle (bottom right), who later became Head Coaches for Saint Joseph's Basketball. Fr. Emory Ross, SJ in right in the middle next to Dr. Jack.

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